Commission sets out path to digitise European industry

Delivering on its Strategy to create a Digital Single Market, the Commission has unveiled its plans to help European industry, SMEs, researchers and public authorities make the most of new technologies:

- helping coordinate national and regional initiatives on digitising industry by maintaining a continuous EU-wide dialogue with all actors involved. A governance framework will be set up with Member States and industry.

- focussing investments in EU's public-private partnerships and strongly encouraging the use of the opportunities offered by the EU Investment Plan and European Structural and Investment Funds.

- investing €500 million in a pan-EU network of digital innovation hubs (centres of excellence in technology) where businesses can obtain advice and test digital innovations.

- adopting future-proof legislation that will support the free flow of data and clarify ownership of data generated by sensors and smart devices. The Commission will also review rules on safety and liability of autonomous systems.

- presenting an EU skills agenda that will help give people the skills needed for jobs in the digital age.

- the Commission will progressively put in place, by 2020, a large scale European high performance computing, data and network infrastructure, including by acquiring two prototype next-generation supercomputers of which one would rank among the top three in the world, establishing a European big data centre, and upgrading the backbone network for research and innovation (GEANT).

- on e-government, the Commission adopted an action plan that includes, among others, a one-stop shop e-justice portal, a pilot project to apply the "once-only" principle for businesses across borders, providing help to EU Member States to develop cross-border e-health services such as e-prescriptions.

- the Commission will speed up the standard setting speed for 5G, cloud computing, internet of things, data technologies and cybersecurity.

- the Commission will launch, in 2018 a flagship project to explore quantum technologies, which promise to solve computational problems that are beyond the capacity of current supercomputers.